A Perspective on Emerging and Future Sintering Technologies of Ceramic Materials

Novel sintering methods have emerged in the recent past years, which have raised great interest in the scientific community. Relying on electric field effects, high heating rates, the use of mechanical pressure, or hydrothermal conditions, they offer fundamental advantages compared to conventional sintering routes like minimizing the energy consumption and enhancing the process efficiency. This perspective aims at explaining these effects in a general way and presenting the status quo of using them for the processing of high-performing ceramic materials. In detail, this work focuses on flash sintering, ultrafast high-temperature sintering, spark plasma sintering, cold sintering, and photonic sintering methods based on different light sources. The specificities, potentials, and limitations of each method are compared, especially in the light of a possible industrialization.